


Ten Years' Waiting

by sheafrotherdon



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-19
Updated: 2008-01-19
Packaged: 2017-10-11 22:53:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/118031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/pseuds/sheafrotherdon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A little romance; a little swearing; a first-time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ten Years' Waiting

"You still miss her," Jennifer says softly as they walk from the mess toward her quarters.

"Yeah." Ronon nods, staring a few feet ahead at the patterns etched on Atlantis' floors. "Melena."

"Melena." Jennifer turns her head to smile at him as she tries the name out on her tongue. "It's lovely."

"Ten years," Ronon says gruffly, glancing at her. He doesn't quite know how to put into words all the jumble of things he's feeling. Maybe counting off the years will do.

Jennifer nods. "Still."

Ronon risks a half-smile, reaches for her hand. "Ten years," he says again, and lets out a little huff of breath when Jennifer tangles her fingers with his.

He leaves her at her door – doesn't try to kiss her again, not with people walking past. But he does squeeze her hand for a second, reach out to run a finger over the tender skin at the inside of her elbow before he ducks his head and heads toward the gym. "Breakfast," he says, over his shoulder, and he catches the flash of her smile before he turns the corner.

They meet for breakfast – she shows up a few minutes later than he does – and sit across the table from one another with eggs and muffins and two mugs of coffee apiece. Ronon presses his knee against hers and smiles when she flushes, when she glances up at his face as if she's truly astonished to realize he's flirting. "You got more bacon than me," she blurts.

"Bigger," Ronon grins, but throws a couple of pieces onto her plate and steals one of her mini muffins in retaliation, pops the whole thing into his mouth in one bite and grins a little harder when she laughs.

They kiss for the first time four days later, when he finds her out on the west pier. It's twilight, and she's breathless and skittish as if he's surprised something out of her, stumbles over telling him she likes to run, as if the sweat dampening her shirt doesn't give it away.

"Me too," he says simply, leaning back against the railing she's standing beside.

She scoffs just a little. "Yes. Well. You – run a little differently than me. I'm not really – "

He shrugs. "S'just running. Feels good."

Jennifer rubs her fingers together, restless and unsettled. "It . . . helps."

"Yeah?"

"On days when – when I can't help, or make it right, or there's too much. It helps."

"Yeah." He turns toward her. "So why'd you wait for dark?

"Oh." She looks up at him, her face more in shadow than light by now. "I just – I don't want to . . . everyone here is – I want to keep up. I just don't want to . . . for people to know or see that . . . "

She's so earnest, so dedicated to the things she thinks she needs to be that he can't help himself, leans in, grazes her lips with his own so that her words slam to a halt. They're not touching anywhere else – just lips, for a moment, then a long drawn-out pause.

"Oh, wow," she whispers, and he doesn't need to see her cheeks to know she's blushing, doesn't need more encouragement to slide one hand alongside her face and the other to the small of her back, to kiss her softly, with all the stored-up wishing of a decade spent alone.

He gathers her close when the kiss is done, warmth flaring hard inside his chest when she settles against him. "You worry too much."

She laughs a little. "Yeah. Tell me something I don't know."

He lets the idea spin out between them, then – "Wanna run?"

Her arms are tiny, wrapped around his waist, but she squeezes him as though she's bigger than she is. "Race you." And he snorts to find himself standing alone as she tears back along the pier, her laughter drifting back toward him. He follows, gun slapping at his thigh, the city rising up before them in a tangle of metal and light.

Whatever it is they're discovering, building in lunch dates and conversation and teasing fights, Ronon's content to let it go slow. He's curiously satisfied to learn what makes Jennifer tick – football, for instance; college, not professional; something about badgers he doesn't completely understand. She tells him about the tradition of the hot dish and he tells her about the ritual of the first _ashnik_ in fall; she has a lot to say about some guy called The Edge, and he teaches her a poem he learned in school, just because it's something he remembers. He finds it's not so hard as it was at first to withstand the sibling-burn of Sheppard's looks, the quirk of his eyebrow, the, "hey, buddy" comments that mean he's digging for news. Rodney's mostly oblivious, looks up one day from a bowl of stew and says, "Hey, you look – " waves his spoon, " – happy," and Ronon slaps his shoulder, mumbles, "Thanks. Yeah," grins at Teyla, who says nothing, but surely understands. All in all, life's much the same as it was before the quarantine, save for the pleasure of soft kisses and crude, earth jokes and stealing naps on a Sunday, Jennifer's hair spilling over his shoulder, her breath hitching then smoothing as she sleeps.

Ronon gets injured on M57-295 – a gash along his thigh from a creature his team can best describe as "blue" and "fast." It hurts like hell, but he grits his teeth, too well trained by his years of Running to betray himself with a yelp when Keller examines the wound. She's distant, efficient, calling out orders as someone cuts off his pants, and when she slides an IV into the back of his hand she looks him in the eye and says, "don't even think about whining." The dizziness that claims him as he drifts off to sleep has nothing to do with the drugs.

When he wakes again, it's nighttime, and he can make out the distant shape of Rodney asleep in a chair across the room. Ronon wets his lips, lifts a hand and finds it too heavy to move the way he wants, wishes he had water.

"Hey," Jennifer says, materializing by his side. There's a cup of ice chips in her hand and she spoons one between his lips. "They've been taking turns," she whispers, nodding her head toward Rodney. "Worried about you."

"Tell him – " Ronon accepts more ice, lets it soothe the ache in his throat. "Tell him I'm fine. Send him home."

"He won't go," Jennifer says fondly. "You know that as well as I do."

Ronon scowls. "His back'll hurt."

"Yeah, well, I'll give him something in a couple of hours when Sheppard comes to relieve him. He'll be fine." She reaches over his head, taps a command into the console that's measuring his pulse. "Nineteen stitches," she says conversationally.

He grunts. "Had worse."

"And a nasty little bacterial infection from the fast blue thing's teeth, so you're staying here another twenty-four hours for IV antibiotics. Not to mention . . ."

"A _day_?"

Jennifer raises an eyebrow. "A day. Quit your bitching."

Ronon sighs and picks at the sheets. "S'dumb."

"Yeah, well, so is fighting with fast, blue, toothy creatures but . . ."

"Hey."

She smiles at him, brushes a hand over his forehead, pushing back a stray dread. "Never quite how I imagined I'd first be touching your thighs," she whispers, and then she walks away, leaving him speechless and a little turned on.

He's done pretty well, not thinking about sleeping with her, at least not too often, which is all he can ask of himself. They haven't talked about it, but she's said enough – no parties, no dances – for him to wonder if she's slept with anyone at all. There's a curious mix of nervousness and warmth in her, uncertain want that makes him want to soothe, reassure, but he worries he'll be too clumsy for her after ten years spent barely touching anyone but himself; wants to make it good for her but wonders if he has it in him, going by the way he jerks himself off, hand tight and reckless around his cock as he stands in the shower, lies in bed and thinks of her body, rounded and soft beneath uniform shirts. He's been out of the infirmary for nearly three weeks when he risks the question, and when he asks, "So – how many guys have there . . ." she pulls back her hand from where it was resting under his, curved around the balcony railing; folds her arms and says, "Well. Some."

Ronon wants to touch her, but everything about her body says _stay the hell away_. "Some, huh?" he repeats, trying to be gentle. He feels too big, too large for this kind of talk.

"Three."

"Okay."

"Three, and – well."

"It's okay."

"We kissed and stuff. We never really . . ."

And he realizes then, some flash of understanding from god knows where, the tilt of her chin, perhaps, or the line of her mouth, that she thinks she's not _good_ enough, not for this – for medicine, yes, and thinking and saving, but not for being touched and held. "Jennifer."

She flinches. "I know. I know, it's pathetic, it's ridiculous and I've been on the pill since I was sixteen and talk about wishful thinking . . .– "

He cups her elbow, a slow, steady touch. "It's okay."

She won't look at him, keeps blinking and staring at the toes of her shoes. "I just missed out on a lot, okay, and the guys I was in school with, the people at the hospital, they were into something different, a faster kind of – " She laughs, bitterly. "God, I just said 'faster.' Like I'm not some archetype of the 1950s already . . ."

Ronon has no idea what she's talking about, just rubs his thumb over the fabric of her jacket. "I don't care."

She looks at him out of the corners of her eyes for just a second. "Don't care about what?'

"Why would I care about other guys?"

"You asked!"

"Just because I want to know – " He tugs on her arm, makes her stand in front of him. "How to make it good," he says simply.

She looks up at him then, eyes wide and startled. "You – you want to . . ."

He smiles at her – a big, warm smile that comes from all the places in him she's been thawing with every smack to his arm, late-night radio check-in, game of Tetris, sugar-packet fight. "Yeah?"

"Oh." The word's so quiet it's barely a breath. She swallows, and he can almost hear it. "Oh, my."

"Come back with me," he says, offering her his hand.

She takes it, looks at their fingers. "Come back where?"

"My room."

"Oh." She grips his hand suddenly, as if she's steadying herself. "Oh. Okay."

They've spent time in his quarters before, in hers as well, but not like this. They're curiously quiet on the walk there, Jennifer leaning close into his side, hiding her face just a little as they pass other members of the expedition in the hallways, even though no one bats an eye at the two of them holding hands. "It's okay," Ronon whispers.

"It's – just." She shakes her head and lets him pull her into his room, lock the door behind them. "Okay, I'm really kind of anxious about this and – "

He slides his big hands up and down her arms, watching her, smiling. She's jittery and won't quite meet his eyes, but her cheeks are flushed again and she keeps looking at his bed. He squeezes her shoulders. "I'll make it good. I promise."

"Oh . . ." Her forehead creases. "I didn't mean I thought you wouldn't! I didn't – I'm sure you're . . ." She glances down at his crotch and then up at his face. "Quite. Accomplished."

He laughs gently. "God, I love you," he murmurs, and leans in to kiss her, hands tangling carefully in her hair.

She squeaks against him. "You what?"

Ronon pulls back just enough to rest his forehead against hers. "Love you." He can see her blinking rapidly as she takes that in.

"Well, fuck," she says, eventually. "I didn't see that coming." And she reaches up, pulls at him until they're kissing again, a little more desperate this time, much less gentle, and when she pauses to bite a path along the slope of his jaw she whispers, "Me too. Me too," and he kisses her temple, finds a path back to her mouth.

For a while, it's all they can manage, to kiss and touch and mumble not terribly coherent things to one another, but eventually Ronon pulls her to him, sits down on his bed, settles her to stand between his thighs.

She swallows, one of his dreads wrapped around two fingers. "Hi."

"Hi," he breathes, nuzzling against her belly, and he feels her muscles leap and twitch beneath her clothes. "Less stuff." And he reaches up, slides his hands beneath her jacket and pushes it from her shoulders, lets it fall to the floor. There are goosebumps on her arms and her nipples are pushing against her shirt, perhaps against her bra. He wants to see, inches his fingertips beneath the stretchy fabric of her medicine-blue shirt, quirks an eyebrow and smiles when she nods. It's gone in a moment, and she stands in front of him, all pale skin from her hips to her shoulders, interrupted only by sensible white cotton, her bra cupping her breasts. He traces a finger between them, and she makes a soft, astonished sound. "Okay?" he asks.

"Hmmm? Oh – oh, yes," she says, but her eyes are a little glazed, and he stretches up, cups a hand around the nape of her neck and pulls her in for another kiss.

"Lie down with me," he whispers.

"Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's good," she says, nodding, and she waits for him to toe off his boots, to slide up the bed before she awkwardly settles herself beside him. She swallows and slides a hand under his vest, and Ronon shivers as her nails scratch over his belly. "You should take this off too. Only fair."

He grins at her, at the ways she's making this comprehensible, but complies – pulls the vest over his head and throws it across the room, out of the way. "Better?" he asks, cupping her breast through her bra, rubbing a thumb over her nipple.

She swallows. "Mmmmhmmm." He sees her eyes flutter closed seconds before he closes his mouth over her collarbone, before he sucks at the hollow of her throat. "Ronon?"

"Yeah?" He spreads his fingers at the small of her back.

"I, uh – appreciate the – that you're . . . what you're doing and everything but . . ." She shifts her hips restlessly. "I'm pretty much an easy lay at this point and if we could . . ."

"Go faster?"

"Jesus, yes, I'm gonna die, just, for the love of god, get on with it, I – "

Ronon laughs, and she laughs too, lets him roll her onto her back and slide his hands behind her, release the catches on her bra. When he stretches out, bends to kiss first one breast, then the other, she tangles her fingers in his hair, arches her spine and presses up against him. How no one ever wanted this from her before is a mystery to him – that no one's ever heard how she sounds when he takes a nipple between his lips, rolls it gently, bites _so softly_ with his teeth; that's more than he can really comprehend.

So he stops thinking, focuses everything on doing instead – strips her slowly of every other article of clothing, spreads her out over his sheets and kisses the instep of her foot, the crook of her knee, the inside of her thigh. She's wet and needy when he touches her, when he eases her thighs apart and licks between her lips, when he slowly rubs the flat of his tongue over her clitoris and feels her arc shamelessly toward his mouth. She murmurs his name and he hums against her, points his tongue and flicks it quickly to make her gasp, soothes her again with what are tantamount to kisses.

"Can't . . . I can't," she murmurs, but her fingers are buried in his hair and he can feel the slow, tight roll of her hips that says she can, she will. He's patient, stroking her thighs, sucking, licking, coaxing her close and letting her fall back, waiting until she's whimpering wordlessly before he closes his lips over her clitoris and sucks hard, making her come, hips jerking up against his mouth, her voice shocked and broken as she bucks and shudders beneath him.

When she sinks back into the mattress he lifts his head, wipes his mouth, and crawls back over her. She's dazed and beautiful, color burning high on her cheeks, thighs still splayed so that he can fit between them. He kisses her, and she jerks when he sweeps her own taste deep into her mouth; she groans and wraps one leg up and over his thigh.

"Get undressed," she whispers. "Please, Ronon . . ."

He obeys, but doesn't remember the mechanics of it – only the heat in her gaze dragging over him, the way she reaches for him as he comes back to bed.

"God, you're . . ." She kisses him, reckless now, winding around him, finding what makes him gasp, where to bite, where to lick. He's hard, hard and leaking, and she tilts her hips, drags his cock along her thigh, whispers, "I think you should – I think it's time you were . . ." and he groans at the thought.

"It might – " he settles over her, hands beside her shoulders. Her hair is a tangled mess, damp with sweat, strewn across his pillow. "It might hurt."

"Okay," she says, nodding, resolute and trembling, hands at his back, pulling him to her, and if she's nervous, if he can see it in the way she's biting her lip, she's more things beside – brave and reckless and in love with him and ready.

"I'll try to – "

"Just – " She kisses him, winds her legs up and over his hips. "Just _do_ it already . . . "

It's awkward – she's holding him so tight that it's hard to move – but he inches a hand between them, guides himself between her legs. "Breathe," he says, and pushes just a little, pulls his hand away and watches her face, pushes again. It's killing him, to move this slowly – she's hot, so hot, so _tight_ against the head of his cock, and he can't help the way his hips twitch, the way he jerks against her, pushes a little further inside. She gasps and tenses, and he's hurting her, he can tell, but she shakes her head, buries her face against his neck, whispers, "move, keep moving," and there's no way he can do anything else. He kisses her temple, her brow, her cheek, rocks his hips and feels her gradually, slowly relax, knows when it stops hurting her, even if it doesn't yet feel good.

She kisses him clumsily, panting softly; he's doing the same. "Inside me," she says, looking mystified. "You're inside me," she repeats, and suddenly she smiles.

Ronon groans, takes her hand, tucks it low between their damp, sweaty bellies. "Touch yourself," he murmurs.

She blushes, even as the thrust of his hips rocks her back against the bed. "I'm okay, I don't . . ."

"Touch yourself," he says again, because he can't hold back much longer; because he wants this to be better for her than just this.

She turns cherry-red but she does as he says, and he feels her fingers brush the base of his cock, pull back to her clitoris, see the way her face transforms as she rubs tiny circles against herself with a hand that shakes. "Oh, god . . ." she says, voice stretched thin and tight, and Ronon tucks his face beside her neck, pulls back his hips and thrusts in hard, again and again.

When he comes, it's a revelation, pulled out of someplace so deep and guarded within him that his shout is almost a sob. It's been so long since he came this way, comforted and guarded by the limbs of another; since he last came back to himself with someone's hands in his hair, smoothing across his back; since someone dragged a foot down his calf and kissed his temple, whispering his name. He pulls out of her, hears her wince, kisses her blindly before he mumbles something about needing a towel, pads to the bathroom to fetch one. It takes a while for the water to run warm, but he waits, patiently; wets a washcloth, comes back and cleans her thighs, the space between her legs. "You okay?" he asks, concerned – she's bleeding a little.

Jennifer just smiles, eyes half-closed. "Little sore. Be okay." She tugs on his arm with a clumsy hand. "Come back to bed."

He slides into place beside her, rubs his nose into her hair. "Thank you," he whispers, and he's not sure what he's thanking her for, but part of it is this, the trust of her body fitted against his.

"Good," she murmurs, pressing kisses to his throat. "So good."

"Hmmmm?"

She touches his cheek, tilts her head back to look at him. "You made it good," she says drowsily.

And Ronon smiles, feels his gut clench and swim the way it hasn't in ten years, closes his eyes and lets her breathing smooth and guide his own.


End file.
